Our story, from the beginning.

We never realized how difficult having children could be. We always thought it was just something you do when you get older – you get married, and you have children; at least that’s how we imagined it. We accomplished the first part with ease. We found each other, fell in love, got engaged, and got married. Who knew that that was the easy part?

We agreed that we would wait to have children until after Jen finished with her doctoral program. We planned it perfectly – we’ll get pregnant in November, and the baby will be born right after her graduation ceremony in the summer, and we’d live happily ever after. Well, November turned to December, and 2009 soon became 2011.

Jen went to her OBGYN and did all the testing she could do on herself to see what exactly the problem was. When all her tests came back normal, Ryan dreaded the possibility that the problem was him. He thought he’d be relieved to find out that maybe his sperm count was a little low, or some other “easy fix” was the reason we weren’t able to conceive yet. We didn’t realize the complexity of the male reproductive system and all the different characteristics that went into a simple, single sperm cell.

We found out the issue wasn’t just the low number of sperm that Ryan had, but also the poor mobility of those sperm, and perhaps most important, the incredible lack of normally shaped sperm. We did a lot of research and Ryan started taking men’s multi-vitamins, special supplements, changed his diet, and we said prayers before bed. We were hopeful when we found out that our insurance would cover three cycles of IUI, but our fertility specialists warned us that with Ryan’s low morphology numbers, our chances were not great. Our best shot was IVF with ICSI. That, however, wasn’t a viable option for us financially. Jen’s student loans from her doctoral program and had just kicked in and Ryan was forced to seek a lower paying job after his company faded out. We decided to go through with a cycle of IUI and keep our fingers crossed. When that failed, we started seeking alternative methods. We read accounts of men in situations similar to Ryan who had received acupuncture, and actually saw improvement in their sperm quality. After a little searching online, we found an acupuncturist specializing it reproductive health within 10 minutes of our home. We figured this was a more realistic option for us, financially, and decided to go through with it. Again, we were extremely optimistic that Ryan’s sperm quality would improve and this would be the answer we had been searching for. After three months, Ryan took another sperm analysis and found that his numbers actually worsened. We tried a second cycle of IUI and again were unsuccessful.

After conversations with our fertility specialists and some soul searching, we came to terms with the fact that IVF with ICSI was our only realistic option to conceive a child together. Donor sperm was a fleeting thought, but Jen could not imagine having a child that did not have Ryan’s DNA. As one of our dear friends said to us once, “The world would be missing out if the two of you were not able to make a child together.” We truly believe that. We have an immense desire to have children. There has never been a second thought about it. Our inability to conceive naturally has made this desire even stronger. We know we will get through this and conceive the most wonderful child. There is no doubt that this has been a tumultuous journey. Our emotions change daily from being angry, humbled, hopeful, helpless, sad, and at peace. What stays constant is our idealistic glimpse of a future where we have a child who is the most precious and loved child who we never, ever take for granted.

So, that brought us to our search for financial assistance of IVF. We felt extremely hopeful when we were on the Resolve website and starting reading about grants for funding IVF. At last, we found a realistic option! We came across 2 grants that we qualified for and applied to both of them. The applications were long and intense, but also healing because it was the first time we both put our feelings down on paper. We told the story of our infertility journey thus far and our plan to give back to the infertility community in any way possible. Jen plans to use her training as a psychologist and work with infertility patients who are going through similar struggles. We also plan to participate in events and fundraisers for infertility causes. We have also become amateur activists by writing letters to our congressman requesting that PA become a state where infertility coverage is a mandated insurance benefit.

We thought our applications were very strong, but knew that there were many other couples in the US that needed the assistance too. And so we waited...